Life after death: what science, religions and the Bible say?

1. Entity type Lemma
2. Original titleЖивот след смъртта: Какво казват науката, религиите и Библията?
3. Language term Bulgarian
4. lemma author Nachev, Ivaylo
5. lemma category Orthodox theological tradition and practice > Eschatology
6. Publication date 24-4-2017
7. lemma work Свиленов, Дечко [Author]. Life after death: what science, religions and the Bible say?
8. lemma manifestations Живот след смъртта: Какво казват науката, религиите и Библията? - Sofia 2014.
9. Lemma body

   1. The author approached this broad subject - the eternal life of the soul - summarizing three perspectives: scientific findings, views of different religions, and the Bible standpoint. Svilenov also commented various attitudes about the question of life after death. One of the discussed points was that biology has shown that life can be separated into three components – matter, energy and biologic information which fully correspond to the Christian outlook for the tripartite nature of men (body, spirit, and soul), three components which are detached by death.  

      The section that provides the scientific perspective was mainly based on examples from the medical practice concerning cases of successfully resuscitated patients and cases of near-death experiences. According to the author, the scientific interest in this new medical area of research has been increasing in the last several years. The referred cases were mostly from West European and US popular science authors.

      In addition, Svilenov discussed physics observations allowed by latest equipment that register electromagnetic energy, identified by some as the soul. The conclusions made by the author included that in the last 30 year the number of scientific specialists has increased accepting the existence of human soul and its eternal life, a change in conceptions facilitated by development of advanced medical instruments. So, this was just a religious topic in the past but it is becoming an increasingly important scientific one, according to the author. Moreover, results from medical studies of boundary conditions confirmed the teaching of the Bible on the soul.

      The part of the text that provides the religious paradigm includes the concepts about continued life after death in a number of the main world religions. Yet, most attention is devoted to the Eastern Orhodox teaching, and here the author focused on Bulgarian interpretations.